For those working in religious education, all eyes were on the interim report of the Department for Education’s review of curriculum and assessment last month. There was lots of skim-reading looking for any references to the subject.
Why? Because religious education (RE) has been given less care and attention than other subjects in the curriculum. It is a well-known “Cinderella subject”, having been nurtured far less than it deserves, and its overall potential for developing the nation’s young people remains untapped.
There are three key problems that have contributed to the decline of RE.
First, Cinderella is not at the ball. RE doesn’t have clear nationwide standards, it isn’t part of the national curriculum and isn’t seen as a top priority by Ofsted or the DfE when holding schools to account.
Some schools simply ignore RE duties altogether, and this isn’t being addressed thoroughly by the inspectorate (Ofsted) or the regulator (DfE). The result: what students get in RE (if they get it at all) is neither fair nor equitable.
RE: different approaches everywhere
The way that RE has been treated over the years means that it currently has different arrangements in different schools. There are lots of ways of explaining these arrangements, but, broadly speaking, depending on the type of state-funded school, RE can either be thought of as objective, critical and pluralistic or it can be taught from a faith perspective that may or may not be these things.
The current set of circumstances prioritises flexibilities for different types of school over an entitlement to high-quality content for all students.
When RE is superficial and taught badly, it can do more harm than good.
But there are incredible possibilities that come with high-quality RE. So what might a reinvigorated pathway for the subject look like?
RE meets the need for students to be prepared for a complex world. Religious and non-religious traditions are intertwined in different countries, in different societies and in different ways.
Even in Great Britain the religious landscape has transformed beyond recognition over the past half-century. British society is now multi-religious and multi-secular. If students are to have any hope of engaging in their society, let alone the world, in informed ways, they need intelligent RE that reflects that contemporary complexity.
RE also meets the need for curriculum diversity. It is inherently diverse, offering a rich repository of stories, narratives, creeds, art forms, practices and life experiences from traditions sprung from, for example, South East Asia, the Middle East and indigenous communities. Within rich, in-depth RE there are plentiful opportunities for “window” moments (seeing the world from someone else’s perspective) and “mirror” moments (seeing oneself in the world), too.
The subject equips young people with critical tools to respond thoughtfully to social, political and technological changes. One could go further and say that RE injects wisdom, sensitivity and reflection into a world that is asking big questions about artificial intelligence, sustainable living, the relationship between humans and the natural world, climate changes and what it means to live well together.
Underpinning all of this requires a political will to make RE provision equitable for all students, to secure clear standards for the subject and to ensure that students learn a curriculum that has fit-for-purpose content choices. Only with these things will the glass slipper truly fit. Only then will Cinderella truly go to the ball.
Dr Richard Kueh is a former HMI national lead for religious education
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